State v. Blanton
| Decision Date | 10 November 2022 |
| Docket Number | 2021-0172 |
| Citation | 2022 Ohio 3985 |
| Parties | The State of Ohio, Appellee, v. Blanton, Appellant. |
| Court | Ohio Supreme Court |
Submitted March 8, 2022
Appeal from the Court of Appeals for Adams County, Nos. 19CA1096 and 19CA1097, 2020-Ohio-7018.
C David Kelley, Adams County Prosecuting Attorney, and Mark R Weaver and Ryan M. Stubenrauch, Assistant Prosecuting Attorneys, for appellee.
Dennis C. Belli, for appellant.
Joseph T. Deters, Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney, and Ronald W. Springman Jr., Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney urging affirmance for amicus curiae Hamilton County Prosecutor's Office.
Morrow, Gordon & Byrd, Ltd., and Phillip Demarest, urging affirmance for amici curiae Ohio Law and Liberty Foundation and Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.
Timothy Young, Ohio Public Defender, and Timothy B. Hackett, Max Hersch, and Elise Grifka Wander, Assistant Public Defenders; Russell S. Bensing; and Erika Cunliffe, Assistant Cuyahoga County Public Defender, urging reversal for amici curiae Office of the Ohio Public Defender, Ohio Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and Office of the Cuyahoga County Public Defender.
{¶ 1} What if you have been convicted of a crime and believe the reason you were convicted is that your trial attorney did a lousy job? When can you challenge that conviction on the basis of the attorney's performance? When must you do it on direct appeal-and when may you do it in a petition for postconviction relief? This case is about those rules.
{¶ 2} The doctrine of res judicata bars someone from raising a claim that could have been raised and litigated in a prior proceeding. State v. Perry, 10 Ohio St.2d 175, 180, 226 N.E.2d 104 (1967). So a court reviewing a postconviction-relief petition generally may not decide a claim that could have been presented at trial and raised on direct appeal. Id. at 180. There's a twist when it comes to claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. We have held that res judicata does not bar a postconviction ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim when either (1) the petitioner had the same attorney at trial and on appeal or (2) he must rely on evidence outside the trial record to establish his claim for relief. State v. Cole, 2 Ohio St.3d 112, 113-114, 443 N.E.2d 169 (1982). The converse is that when the petitioner had a new attorney on appeal and the claim could have been litigated based on the trial record, res judicata applies and the postconviction claim is barred. Id.
{¶ 3} Denny Blanton, the postconviction petitioner in this case, asks us to change our rules. He would like for us to say that res judicata never applies to postconviction ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims. In this view, one could always raise a postconviction claim of ineffective assistance of counsel even when the claim could have been raised and addressed on direct appeal. We conclude that it is best to stick with our existing rules.
{¶ 4} Applying these rules, we go through each of Blanton's postconviction claims. We determine that he is not entitled to a hearing on any of them. The court of appeals analyzed some of the claims differently than we do, but it ultimately reached the same result. So we affirm its judgment.
{¶ 5} When he was a senior in high school, Blanton, who was 18 years old at the time, was accused of kidnapping and raping J.S., a 15-year-old freshman girl. The matter proceeded to a jury trial in the Adams County Court of Common Pleas, at which the following evidence was presented.
{¶ 6} J.S. ran track and cross-country for her high school. By her account, she was covering her usual training route on a country road one February afternoon when Blanton pulled over in his pickup truck and asked her for directions. He got out of his truck, ostensibly to show her a map. But after approaching J.S., he shoved her to the ground, punched her in the face, and bound her arms with his belt. Then he ordered her into the back seat of his truck and drove to a cemetery. Once there, Blanton climbed into the back seat of the truck, where he forced J.S. to put her mouth on his penis and then vaginally raped her.
{¶ 7} J.S. recounted that after the episode was over, she made conversation with Blanton to keep him calm. He asked her if she had "enjoyed it?" Out of fear, she said "yes." Finally, Blanton dropped J.S. off on the side of the road and told her not to tell anyone what had happened. He gave her a fist bump as she got out of the truck.
{¶ 8} Blanton told a different story. He testified that J.S. had waved at him, appearing to be "out of breath" and "in some type of distress." He offered her a ride, and she climbed into the back seat. J.S. then suggested that they pull over near the cemetery and invited Blanton to join her in the back seat. When he got in the back seat, she began rubbing his leg. He asked if she would give him a "blow job," and she did. Then she asked if he wanted to have sex, which led to a consensual sexual encounter.
{¶ 9} Blanton said he had intended to drive J.S. home afterward. But on the way, J.S. suggested they stop for doughnuts at a local bakery. Blanton refused, telling her that he had to meet his girlfriend. Blanton said that at that point, J.S.'s "whole demeanor changed" and she told him to let her out on the side of the road.
{¶ 10} Blanton dropped J.S. off near a house. J.S. related that once he was out of sight, she "took off sprinting" toward the bakery, which was about a third of a mile away. But when she approached, the bakery looked to be closed, so she decided to go to the house next door instead. J.S. spotted a girl bringing laundry into the house and asked the girl if she could use the family's outdoor phone. J.S. called her mother to come get her and then waited for her at the end of the driveway, next to the bakery sign.
{¶ 11} The girl said that when she first saw J.S., J.S. was sitting on some red stones by the bakery sign, with her head down on her knees. J.S. eventually walked up the drive, and the girl could see that she had been crying. After making a call, J.S. went back to sit on the stone blocks at the end of the drive.
{¶ 12} J.S.'s mother took her to the emergency room at Adams County Regional Medical Center, where she underwent a rape examination. J.S.'s hymen was torn, and she was bleeding from her vagina. Her left cheek was red and swollen, she had marks on her back and arms, and there was dirt on her legs. Two days later, J.S. was interviewed by a social worker and examined by a physician at the Mayerson Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Subsequent testing revealed the presence of Blanton's DNA in semen found on J.S.'s shorts. Testing also showed that he could not be excluded as a contributor to seminal fluid found on swabs taken from J.S.'s vaginal and anal cavities.
{¶ 13} Police questioned Blanton the day after the attack. He admitted that he had given J.S. a ride but denied having had any physical contact with her. Blanton claimed at trial that he had lied to the police about having sex with J.S. because he didn't want his girlfriend to find out he had cheated on her.
{¶ 14} The jury returned guilty verdicts on the rape and kidnapping charges. Blanton appealed his convictions to the Fourth District Court of Appeals, which affirmed. State v. Blanton, 4th Dist. Adams No. 16CA1031, 2018-Ohio-1275.
{¶ 15} While he was being held in jail on the rape charges, Blanton and two other inmates beat up Gary Lunsford, one of their cellmates. Lunsford told authorities that after the attack, Blanton and the others prevented him from seeking medical assistance for his injuries. Blanton was charged with felonious assault and kidnapping for his role in the attack on Lunsford. The trial court conducted a second jury trial on the charges stemming from Blanton's conduct while in jail.
{¶ 16} Trial testimony revealed that Blanton and six other inmates in his cell block had participated in a "fight club." Blanton and two others, Devon Michael and Zack McKee, organized the matches. In the two weeks leading up to the attack on Lunsford, fights took place nearly every day. Lunsford, in his telling, was reluctant to participate; but Blanton, Michael, and McKee told him that if he didn't, they would make him fight all three of them at once. Lunsford said the three would often "congregate together" and that he "knew something was going to happen, [but not] to who or what."
{¶ 17} One afternoon, Lunsford and another inmate wrestled while Blanton refereed. After they took a break, McKee walked up and "sucker punched" Lunsford. Michael joined in, and he and McKee forced Lunsford to the floor, taking turns kicking and punching him in his head and body. Once Michael and McKee had finished with him, Blanton walked over and punched Lunsford some 15 times in the head as he lay on the floor. A video of the attack shows that Lunsford was not moving much, if at all, during Blanton's initial attack.
{¶ 18} After some time, Lunsford tried to get up. Blanton quickly ran over and delivered swift blows to Lunsford's head. Then Blanton backed Lunsford up against the wall and began pummeling him with his fists. Lunsford stumbled away and fell to the floor, motionless. Michael and McKee joined back in and stomped on Lunsford a few more times. The three attackers circled Lunsford as he lay on the ground. Each time Lunsford tried to stand, they knocked him back down. This went on until Lunsford finally collapsed onto one of the bunks.
{¶ 19} Lunsford said he did not remember much of the assault, because he had been "knocked unconscious" and was "incapacitated." Another cellmate recounted: ...
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